


The Doctors in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler

by Nicnac



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicnac/pseuds/Nicnac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose has had quite enough of the Doctor making decisions for her and of being left behind at Bad Wolf Bay, and it's not as though she can't keep an eye of the new Doctor just as well from inside the TARDIS. Besides, how bad can two Doctors really be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everybody Lives

**Author's Note:**

> I just spent the past couple weeks powering my way through the entirety of the Doctor Who revival series, so now it's fic writing time! THis story will be a series of scenes, drabbles, bits and bobs, and even occasional oneshots, depicting the 'what if' of Rose and Ten.5 staying in the TARDIS with the Doctor. And since this is just for fun, I open it up to all of you as well. If there's any scene in particular you'd like to see, or any question about their life together that you have, throw it at me and I'll see what I come up with. Keep in mind, I'm sticking with canon pairings, and nothing above a Teen rating.

“And you made me better; now you can do the same for him,” the Doctor said.

Rose was silent for several long minutes after that, appearing to think over what he had said. The Doctor breathed an internal sigh of relief. It was hard enough leaving her behind again, and on this same awful beach no less, he really didn’t fancy the idea of trying to _convince_ her to stay.

“You know Doctor,” Rose finally said, “I’m really tired of you trying to make my decisions for me.” Before he could object – he had even _seen_ her in years much less made any decisions for her, granted less time had passed by her timeline, but still quite a while! – she had turned around and wrapped Jackie up in a hug so tight it just had to hurt.

“I love you, Mum, and I’m going to miss you so much. Give Dad and Tony my love,” Rose said, her voice choked with tears.

“Of course, sweetheart. Now you look after yourself. Oi you, Doctor-lady,” Jackie called, motioning at Donna, “look after my daughter. I can hardly count on these two idiots to do it.”

“Hey!” objected both the Doctors simultaneously.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on her,” Donna said, giving her a smart little salute, apparently joining in on the Tyler conspiracy to completely ignore the Doctor(s).

Well, he couldn’t very well let that stand. He would not be ignored! “No, you will not,” the Doctor said firmly, “because Rose has to stay here and take care of him.” The Doctor pointed at his part-human self, who looked entirely too amused by the proceedings. But then, the Doctor had got the sense that the other him was against this plan to begin with, which was completely ridiculous since _he_ was absolutely getting the better end of the deal here. “He needs you."

“And I never said I wouldn’t be helping him,” Rose retorted. She grabbed the meta-crisis Doctor by the hand and said, “Come on you, you and I are supposed to stick together apparently,” before dragging him along back into the TARDIS. Donna followed, laughing – at him no doubt.

The Doctor watched, barely able to keep his jaw from dropping at the sheer cheek of it. Here he was, trying to give Rose everything she could possibly want, her mum, her dad – well, a parallel universe version of her dad, but he was tremendously rich, so that probably helped balance it out a little bit, yeah? – a little brother, and even himself, but an himself that could age with her, could give the rest of his life to her. Not to mention he had a piece of TARDIS coral is his pocket to give them, since he knew his Rose wouldn’t be happy without some adventure in her life. He was going to give her _everything_ and yet there she goes, waltzing off again. But that was Rose for you, completely infuriating, always wandering off, never doing what she was told, and just totally and utterly-

“Hey, Doctor!” Rose called, leaning in the doorway of the TARDIS and smiling that tongue-touched smile of hers. “Are you coming or not?”

-perfect. “Oh Rose Tyler, you are brilliant,” he breathed.

“Of course she is,” Jackie said. “She’s my daughter, innit she?”

“Too right she is!” The Doctor agreed enthusiastically. He gave her a hug and a quick kiss on the lips (he would remember that with much regret later). “Give my regards to Pete,” he told her. Then he turned and ran. To the TARDIS, to his more-or-less brother, (away from Jackie), to Rose, and to forever. 


	2. That Which We Call a Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: The views in this chapter don't necessarily reflect the views of the author. In point of fact, the author finds all names for the character played by David Tennant and created in "Journey's End" to be equally valid and ridiculous.

“So, what am I supposed to call the two of you then?” Rose asked, entering the console room with three mugs of tea held somewhat precariously between her two hands. The Doctors were supposedly checking over the TARDIS for any damage that might have been caused by their recent travels – all of time and space, and even towing Earth across the universe was one thing, but dimension hopping and traveling through the Medusa Cascade was a bit more than the TARDIS was used to. Of course, that lie had been a lot more believable when they first told it fourteen hours ago; now Rose suspected that ‘fixing the TARDIS’ was just their way of distracting themselves from what had happened with Donna. Hence the (hopefully) comforting tea and the further distraction.

The Normal Doctor looked up at her in confusion from his spot by the main console. “What do you mean, what are you supposed to call us?”

“You’re supposed to call us the Doctor, same as always. We’re still the same man as before, both of us,” added the Other Doctor, emerging from underneath the TARDIS floor.  He took the mug of tea that the Normal Doctor and Rose hadn’t already claimed, which was all the proof Rose needed that the TARDIS didn’t really need any fixing; the Doctor never let himself get distracted from repairing the TARDIS for anything as simple as tea – tea and biscuits and a couple of pieces of banana bread, maybe, but not just tea.

“I know,” Rose said. And, besides her habit of calling them ‘the Normal Doctor’ and ‘the Other Doctor’ in her head, she did get that now. “But what if I need to talk to just one of you? You both need a middle name or something. You’re the same, but that doesn’t mean you’re interchangeable.” Rose frowned a little to herself. That had made sense in her head, but she wasn’t so sure it did out loud. But then the Doctors looked at her with that familiar and much missed mix of surprise and adoration (plus a little bit of hope on the Other Doctor’s part, which meant sensible or not, she was right at least), some maybe they had understood her after all.

“An excellent point,” said the Normal Doctor. “But what should we call ourselves? The Time Lord Doctor and the Human Doctor seem like the obvious choice.”

“Seem like it, but they’re grossly inaccurate,” said the Human Doctor. “Better would be the fully Time Lord Doctor and the Time Lord-Human Meta-Crisis Doctor.”

“Except that’s far too much of a mouthful. And the Doctor Duplicate is out for you…”

“…because it has the exact same problem as the Human Doctor. Or is that the opposite problem? The same problem coming from the opposite direction?” the Doctor Duplicate pondered, staring into space for a second before snapping back to the present. “Besides, if I’m the Doctor Duplicate, that would make you the Regular Doctor.”

“And that’s _completely_ boring,” the Regular Doctor concluded. “I suppose we could always call you Handy…”

“Oi! I’m not being called ‘Handy.’” Handy objected, unconsciously falling into Donna’s cadences. “And the Doctor and Handy in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler sounds ridiculous.”

“I could always just call you Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Rose remarked, giving them an amused glance over her tea mug.  

“Now _you’re_ being ridiculous, Rose,” Tweedledum said.

“Thing 1 and Thing 2 is much better reference,” said Thing 2.

“Thing 1 and Thing 2,” Rose mused. “Or would it be Thing 2 and Thing 3, with the old you as Thing 1?”

“Well in that case I’d be Ten and he’d be…” Ten paused, looking at his other self with a puzzling sort of expression.

“Eleven?” Rose offered, somehow managing not to squeak in surprise at the revelation that there had been eight other Doctors before she had met him. She’d known there had been some, at the very least the two Sarah Jane had accompanied, but she hadn’t realized there were so many.

“No, that’s not right. I’m not a new regeneration, so much as the same one over again. TenTwo, maybe? TenToo? TenII?” the currently numberless Doctor said.

“But those all sound like an indirect way of saying Twelve, or a backwards way of saying Twenty.” Ten said. “Ten…”

“And-a-Half?” Rose put in. The Doctors were quiet for a moment, before breaking out into simultaneous, identical grins.

“It’s not perfect,” Ten began.

“But I quite like it anyway,” Ten-and-a-Half finished.

So, Doctor Ten and Doctor Ten-and-a-Half. It wasn’t exactly what Rose had had in mind when she started this conversation, but somehow it fit. It was ridiculous and strange and so completely Doctor that Rose couldn’t help but grin back. 


	3. A Reason for Me

A sudden blast buffeted the three of them, knocking the Doctors and Rose down onto Mars’s rocky surface. The Doctor turned around, his gaze sweeping past the burning wreckage as he looked for Rose and Ten-and-a-Half. It wasn’t until after he had made sure his companions were safe and unharmed that he was able to taken in the horror that lay before them.

All that death and destruction, because he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“Isn’t there anyway we can help them?” Rose asked.

No not because he _couldn’t_ do anything to stop it, but because he _wasn’t allowed_ to do anything.

“It’s a fixed point in time,” Ten-and-a-Half reminded her. “Any attempt to save them would have terrible consequences. If we’re lucky all that would happen…”

They were bound by the whims of time. But he was a Time _Lord_ , the last of the Time Lords. Why shouldn’t he save anyone he wanted to? Time should bend to his whims, bow to his commands, not the other way around. He would be the Time Lord Victorious –

“Doctor Ten!” Rose said sharply, tugging on his hand. “I said, Ten-and-a-Half and I decided, if we can’t save them, at least we can stay here on Mars until… Well, no one should have to die alone.”

Startled, the Doctor finally looked at Rose, really looked at her. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks, belied by her determined expression. He didn’t even need to see Ten-and-a-Half to know how he looked, grim and resolute. His double would know the arrogant turn Ten’s thoughts had taken, and would do everything necessary to stop him.

Which was absolutely nothing. Because in the face of such a quiet form of tear-stained bravery what could the Doctor do but go along?

“Yes, we definitely should stay.”


	4. Spoilers!

“Sweetie, can you come here a second?” River called, not looking up from the computer in front of her. Though when the Doctor didn’t appear in short order, she did glance over to see a giggling Rose poking two disgruntled Doctors in the side.

“I think she means the both of you.”

“Oh no,” River corrected, “I just need the one. You can keep your Doctor if you like.”

“My Doctor?” Rose echoed, looking a bit confused, and River had to remind herself yet again that this was only Rose’s first time meeting her.

“Oh, yes,” River confirmed, crossing over to them. “This one is your Doctor,” she said, grabbing Ten-and-a-Half and shoving him into Rose, “and this one is mine,” she concluded, looping her arm through Ten’s. “Well,” she said, looking the Doctor up and down and finding herself once again unsure whether she was well rid of the bow ties or if she missed them, “he’s not quite yet, but he’s on his way there.”

Rose continued to look confused for a second before breaking into a delightfully mischievous version of her tongue-in-teeth smile. “I guess we’re lucky we’ve got two of them, then,” Rose said, slipping her hand into her very pleased looking Doctor’s.

River let out an elated laugh. “Very lucky. My parents never did teach me to share. Not their fault, only child, and they were really still just children themselves when I was growing up, but there you are,” she said, getting a bit of a thrill out of dropping such a large spoiler without anyone the wiser. “Now come along, sweetie.” River began walking back to the computer, dragging the Doctor along with her.

“Hey,” objected her Doctor. “Don’t we get a say in this?”

River and Rose smiled and answered together. “No.”


End file.
